Green Party on Homeland Security

Party Platform

Burden of fighting is borne by families of lesser means

GI and Veterans' Rights: Support for men and women in the armed forces must go far beyond the rhetoric used to discredit the peace movement in the U.S. today. We believe that the ill-advised and illegal actions of the U.S. administration have
unnecessarily put our troops in harm's way. We further believe that the dangerous burden of fighting the unnecessary war in Iraq, and the wars that may follow, due to the administration's overly narrow and militaristic response to terrorism
is disproportionately borne by families of lesser means. Those who are required to carry out militaristic policies, often with great hardship to themselves, their families,
and even the risk of their lives, deserve our respect and our commitment to adequate compensation and benefits.

Source: Green Party of the United States National Platform
, Jul 31, 2014

Promise to close Guantanamo has no real plan to achieve it

President Obama's State of the Union last night showed that our task has now become parsing his statements to show Americans reality rather than the myths that falsify reality.

President Obama began painting a rosy picture of the economy on the
rebound, unemployment dropping and healthcare on the mend, based on narrow, selective examples. By failing to paint the full picture, he paints a false one.

On issue after issue we see the same false description of reality followed by proposals that do
not solve the real problems: the green light to environmentally damaging fracking that will worsen the climate crisis, the promise to close Guantanamo--a promise repeated several times in previous years--again with no real plan to achieve it, the promise
that the healthcare law is working, already saving money when in fact it is resulting in people getting worse healthcare coverage and not going to the doctor when they need to because out-of-pocket costs are so high.

Bulk of military budget is indirect subsidy for oil & gas

The Green Party calls for elimination of subsidies for fossil fuels, nuclear power, biomass and waste incineration and biofuels.
We must also acknowledge that the bulk of our military budget is, in fact, an indirect subsidy for oil & gas corporations.

End all research, use, and sale of bio-chemical weapons

End all stockpiling of chemical and biological weapons and all research, use, and sale of such weapons; and sign the convention that establishes U.N. inspection and reduction of all nations’ stockpiles of such weapons.

End research, testing and stockpiling of all nuclear weapons

Our government should establish a policy to abolish nuclear weapons. It should set the conditions and schedule for fulfilling that goal by taking the following steps:

Declare a no-first-strike policy.

Declare a no-pre-emptive strike policy.

Declare that the U.S. will never threaten or use a nuclear weapon, regardless of size, on a non-nuclear nation.

Sign the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty (CTBT). Our pledge to end testing will open the way for non-nuclear states to sign the
Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), which has been held up by our refusal to sign the CTBT. Honor the conditions set in the NPT for nuclear nations.

Reverse our withdrawal from the
Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty and honor its stipulations.

End the research, testing and stockpiling of all nuclear weapons of any size.

Onerous Patriot Act assaults civil liberties

The so-called war on terrorism must not become an assault on the civil liberties that are enshrined in our Constitution. The price of freedom is not the loss of liberty. Constitutionally protected rights--fought for by American patriots--are rights the
Green Party patriotically holds in the highest regard. Greens demand that the Justice Department cease and desist its wholesale rollback of constitutional protections and its daily dismantling of legal safeguards.

The use of Homeland Defense monies to
spy on citizens exercising First Amendment rights is particularly onerous, as are “sneak and peek” provisions of the Patriot Act that allows surveillance of libraries, readers, the Internet, and computer users. Basic rights ensuring individual
privacy are under attack. The US government’s use of high tech tools, including intrusive monitoring, data mining and analysis to identify and disrupt citizen activists, should be seen as an attack on fundamental rights of an engaged, active citizenry.

Demilitarize our society and eliminate our WMDs

Ten Key Values: (#4) Nonviolence

It is essential that we develop effective alternatives to our current patterns of violence at all levels, from the family and the streets, to nations and the world. We will work to demilitarize our society
and eliminate weapons of mass destruction, without being naive about the intentions of other governments. We recognize the need for self-defense; nonviolent methods will guide our actions toward lasting personal, community and global peace.

SDI doesn’t work; money better spent elsewhere

Q: I assume you’re against SDI?

A: Well, it doesn’t work, even according to the physics community. Gen. MacArthur warned against looking for enemies. [An enemy] could bring a nuclear bomb in a suitcase -- so what are
we gonna do, have a $500 billion suitcase defense system? We have far more serious needs -- with billions spent on arms instead of spending pennies to protect children’s health.

Abolish nuclear weapons

The Green Party would press for the immediate start of the negotiation of a treaty to abolish nuclear weapons, and for the completion of those negotiations by the year 2002. We would cut off all funding for the development,
testing, production, and deployment of nuclear weapons, and also cut off funding for nuclear weapons research. All nuclear weapons should be taken off alert and all warheads removed from their delivery vehicles.

Cut defense budget by 50%

Our present task is to rid ourselves of the residue of the geopolitical conflict of East versus West, with its bloated defense budgets, thousands of unneeded nuclear weapons and major troop deployments overseas.

With half of all discretionary spending
now going to the military, the president requesting spending even the Pentagon thinks is wasteful, and the Congress proposing even more than the president requests, Greens believe the more than $300 billion DEFENSE BUDGET MUST BE CUT. The Green Party
calls for military spending to be cut by 50% over the next 10 years, with increases in spending for social programs.

Preventive diplomacy, a strong economy and humane trade relations are our best defense. We must maintain a viable American
military force, prudent foreign policy doctrines, and readiness strategies that take into account real, not hollow or imagined threats to our people, our democratic institutions and U.S. interests. Even so, Greens seek strength through peace.